HAMLET

CONCEPT BRIEF: Redesign a banned book highlighting the reason it was censored

HAMLET - Publication Design

This project was to design, print, and hand bind a book that was banned at some point in history. I chose the play Hamlet because it dealt with the controversial issue of mental illness and suicide, which I believe is still too taboo a topic in todays society. Additionally, I wanted to give myself a typography challenge that I might never get to encounter in the

real world.

When opened from its straightjacket box, the book cover features a brain in a similar style to Rorschach tests within the book. The brain symbolizes both the potential mental illness that Hamlet was suffering from and the other possibility that all his actions were simply mind games. On the base of the straightjacket box, the reader will find a doctor’s note with all of the possible mental illnesses Hamlet could have been suffering from. As he descends into madness the typography reflects this with the typeface that has both serifs and sans serifs that disrupts the readability and allows the reader a brief glimpse into his maddening state.

All text was taken off of Project Gutenberg and edited on InDesign, the images created in Illustrator, then printed and hand folded, sewn, and hand bound.

PROGRAMS USED: Illustrator, InDesign